When Jim Crow was flourishing, the militia was being quietly disbanded without the public noticing. As for me, I wasn't around at the time... gee, I wasn't even a gleam in my daddy's eyes then.
That's exactly the point. Some people want to use a mistake out of history to blame everyone for all time. The people that burned those churches in the 1960's are long gone, that generation is on its death bed, but "progressives" have to have some excuse to hate people so they dredge up something from ancient history.
armed right winger prepares for police: http://gawker.com/oregon-militia-gu...m_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow this is sheer terrorism but the right wing media calls it "militia" ------------- Black Thugs, Muslim Terrorists and White Patriots: The Issue With Today's Media http://www.huffingtonpost.com/omar-alnatour/black-thugs-muslim-terror_b_8916268.html The FBI defines domestic terrorism as "acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law" that are "calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct". According to the FBI itself, an act of terrorism took place this past Saturday yet the average American had little to no idea about it due to the disparity in media coverage and police response when it comes to violence in America ... Why is it that when a person violates the law in the United States, the extent of the media coverage on that crime is more correlated with the criminal's ethnicity rather than the severity of the crime itself? Why is it that when 150 unarmed African Americans occupied a blocked off street in Ferguson, they were tear-gassed, smoke-bombed, and shot down with rubber bullets? Why is it that the national guard was brought in with brutality when unarmed blacks were simply pleading for their civil rights last year yet not a single police officer was seen when armed whites in Oregon violated federal law this past weekend? Why is it that the last time an armed black anti-government group protested against the federal government, they were bombed and burned alive? more .... none dare call it right wing political correctness
Police are being targeted... North Dakota Sheriff: 'People Are Hunting Us' February 11, 2016 - Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney said during a news briefing Thursday morning that law enforcement officers across the country are being targeted.
cop who murdered innocent unarmed black man visiting his baby daughter is convicted but given a light sentence: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york...-fatal-shooting-akai-gurley-article-1.2528827 5-10 for manslaughter had it been you or me who murdered that innocent guy we would have gotten 20 - 30 years
You don't want to use that analogy. We don't blame the dog that bites, even if tormented. We put it down. If something cannot control it's tendency to cause harm, we take that capacity away from it. Most people can and should have better control than an animal. That said there are some bad things going on in this country. There are departments that are over burdened and letting some bad things happen. Not everyone can or should be a cop, but when departments are stretched thin... well, the wrong people get put into situations they can't properly handle. Bad stuff happens. It's not by design. I think most folks recognize this needs to be fixed and it is being addressed both on the local level and even (in some cases) by federal agencies. That long look is occurring.
It does not matter if the abuses are by design, or unintended consequences, or due to budget cuts, or simply accidents. Cops have extreme authority, they have almost unlimited room to injure and kill, and because of that every department should have as a priority only hiring the appropriate people. If that means they are stretched thin then so be it. The real solution is actual oversight of the police, and real punishment for cops that abuse their authority. Even cops that make a mistake should at a minimum face the same consequences a non-cop would face. When a cop kills an innocent person then the cop should not be able to say "I was in fear of my life" and get away with it. Would that work for a non-cop who killed someone? Not a chance.
Do not invoke the matter of Trayvon Martin in this discussion. Everything there is that could be said on the matter has been said. There is no point in further discussion to the legalities of someone using lethal force in response to having their skull slammed against the pavement while being held down.
I'm not sure what your point is. My point is that cops should not be held to a lower standard than the non-cop. Laws should apply equally to all people. If a person is holding a firearm and fires it and kills an innocent person, then that person should automatically be charged with negligent homicide at a minimum. I would even argue that a cop due to his advanced training and great authority should be held to an even higher standard - even if he is justly found innocent of negligent homicide, he should be removed from the PD and never allowed to be a cop again.
The law does hold cops to an equal standard. The law also requires you to prove your claim. Just as was required in Florida.
Cops frequently are not held accountable. John Crawford was killed while shopping in a WalMart, the full WalMart surveillance video is on the internet as well as all the details. Briefly, a man called 911, lied about Crawford, cops showed up and gunned down Crawford immediately. The state attorney ruled that Crawford had done nothing illegal, was not a threat, and should not have been shot - and the same state attorney decided not to prosecute the cop. And the 911 caller who lied - Ronald Ritchie - was not charged either. What if Ritchie told a shopper that there was a man with a rifle threatening people, that shopper then went to Crawford and immediately shot him, what would happen to the shopper? Prison. Same circumstances, with badge = get away with murder. Or Aiyana Jones, 7 years old, sleeping on the sofa, shot in the head and killed in a no-knock raid. Immediately the cop (Joseph Weekley) who shot her said the grandmother grabbed his arm, the grandmother was arrested and spent that night in jail. Great police work there - cop lies, grandmother gets to sit in jail grieving over her murdered granddaughter. That grandmother excuse didn't last long - turns out there was an A&E tv film crew on sight filming the cops for a reality tv show. Allison Howard of A&E, who was there, released the video to someone (not sure who), the video showed the grandmother was not near Weekley. And what did Allison Howard get for exposing the liar cop? Obstruction of justice and perjury. Weekley was eventually charged with involuntary manslaughter and discharge of a firearm, after 2 mistrials, all charges were dropped. How many times do we read about someone shooting into a home and killing a child, and everyone turns the town upside down to find and punish the shooter? But get a badge, and you can kill a 7 year old, lie and cause suffering to a grandmother, and get away with it all. There are many cases like those, there are web sites which track these cases and lesser abuses. You can say that most cops are good, but that's irrelevant because although a minority of cops commit these extreme abuses, their entire PD and the legal system rallies around them and protects them. The entire legal system is corrupt.
"Why the Hatred of Cops? " one word.... PROHIBITION end prohibition and then cops do not have to be jerks again
People frequently are not held accountable. Our system intentionally errs on that side, giving the accused the benefit of the doubt. And cops are people.
The system is obviously broken. There are entire countries in Europe in which the police kill less people that they do in one of our mid sized cities. IMO one of the problems is that we recruit ex military to staff our police departments and they have been trained by the government to react to every situation with overwhelming force. We need to look a lot closer at the type of person we are hiring to do law enforcement. Law enforcement personnel are given a huge amount of power, literally the power of life and death over other human beings. What kind of person seeks to have that kind of power? Most of us here would not want to ever be in a situation where they may have to kill someone else or even to cause them pain and suffering. But there is a type of person who is attracted to that kind of power and they are the last people in the world who should have it. Most of us have encountered the bad cop with the bad attitude who is prone to bullying and trying to escalate a simple situation to a confrontation. The question is why we allow this type of person to hold this kind of position. The answer is that we do not have any say in the matter. The job of the police is no longer to protect the public, it is to carry out the agenda of the government, and the government considers the citizens as the enemy.
Police officers are held to a lower legal standard than the general public, excusing much of their bad behavior. They are held to the standard of what the police officer believed was reasonable and necessary at the time of the incident.
An officer is allowed to use what he may have reasonably concluded was appropriate force. So are you. What you said is not the same thing and it is not the standard.
No, absolutely incorrect. Our system errs on the side of caution, our system follows the concept of innocent until proven guilty, and "better that 10 guilty go free than 1 innocent suffer". But that concepts still requires accountability and a process. Take any of the many cases in which cops were not held accountable for shooting a truly innocent person, take away the badge, and what do you think the outcome would be on the non-cop? *** And, again, because cops have significant training and are given extreme authority, cops should be held to a very high standard. Cops should hold themselves to a standard higher than the average population. Instead, the opposite happens.
There are a few good cops. However, it is rather tragic that many certified police officers are under-educated people, dumb as a stump with below average IQs, who look at their gun and badge as a license to assault scared young woman at traffic stops, abuse minorities and beat their wives. Sad but true. That said, there are a few good cops among the rabble. They are not all bad.
That if you take away the badge, it can still be found that there is not enough evidence to demonstrate an incident is more than an accident or otherwise than a justified shooting.
